The Life of Shiki Tohno
The Life of Shiki Tohno is a series of canon side stories that follows the whereabouts of Shiki Tohno after the events of Right Hand of the Crimson Moon ''and serves as a bridge to ''Civil War. It began on January 23, 2016 and ended on June 6, 2016. * Part 1 - The Life of Shiki Tohno * Part 2 - The Epiphany of Shiki Tohno * Part 3 - The Departure of Shiki Tohno * Part 4 - The Disappearance of Shiki Tohno * Part 5 - The Law of Shiki Tohno * Part 6 - The Hunt for Shiki Tohno * Part 7 - The Ideal of Shiki Tohno Characters * Akiha Tohno * Akiko Yosano * Arcueid Brunestud * Ciel * Doppo Kunikida * Hisui * Kohaku * Kouma Kishima * Len * Minato Arisato * Satsuki Yumizuka * Shiki Tohno * Touko Aozaki * VECTOR Story Details Chapter 1 - "The Life of Shiki Tohno" During the events of Right Hand of the Crimson Moon, Shiki Tohno had come into the involuntary employment of Touko Aozaki in exchange for the right to keep his Mystic Eye Killer glasses (which had been stolen from Touko by her sister, Aoko, long ago), working alongside the spirit of Satsuki Yumizuka that had manifested from Night of Wallachia when he was still alive. Shiki is seen working as usual in Touko's workshop, contemplating the strange sort of boring normalcy that had returned to his life, as normal as his life could possibly be. Shiki sees this normalcy as a peace that he did not deserve to have, despite noting that many would say that his accomplishments outweighed his sins, including playing a part in defeating the Arch Demon back in The Ultimate Game. Just as Shiki's thoughts would begin to drift towards Satsuki Yumizuka, Touko would snap him back to reality, reminding him that he was working right now. , the memory still impacting him a whole year since then.|266x266px]] Regardless, Shiki's thoughts continued on about Yumizuka as he would recollect his past with her, going all the way back to before even The Ties That Bind. Exposition clarifies that back when she was alive, Yumizuka was Shiki's classmate, and that she had a crush on him. Eventually, they would begin dating, but their relationship would be cut abruptly short when Yumizuka had become a vampire against her own will after being attacked by Roa, the antagonist of Tsukihime. Having become a dangerous, uncontrollable monster, Yumizuka would eventually be killed by Shiki and end her reign of terror, the event traumatizing Shiki well into The Ties That Bind. Even after he would kill Roa by the end of Tsukihime, Shiki had become an empty shell of a man, having lost his first love, as he believed he had broken the promise he made to her, promising that he would protect Yumizuka no matter what. As such, believing it was the only way he would be able to function again as a person, Shiki's subconscious repressed the memories he had together with Yumizuka, causing him to forget her name and most of his experiences with her, though he claims that her face continued to haunt him. Just as his thoughts would then shift to the beginning of the Murder Games, Shiki would once again be snapped out of his thoughts by the spirit of Satsuki Yumizuka, pointing out that he had put some items in the wrong place. Noting how odd that the spirit seemed cherry like Yumizuka's original self, rather than vengeful like Shiki would have expected, Shiki would then recall his experiences in The Ties That Bind, where he had dared to fall in love with Mikasa Ackerman, who would suffer the same fate as Yumizuka come The Reapers' Game. However, instead of falling further into despair, Shiki would use Mikasa's death as an opportunity to grow stronger and obtain the determination to face his problems head on, never realizing that he was continuing to run away from the memory of Yumizuka's death. With that, Shiki would then remember the events of Right Hand of the Crimson Moon where he would run into the ghost of Yumizuka, forcing his repressed memories to resurface again and bringing him back into a state of despair. With Night of Wallachia dead, Shiki figured that Yumizuka's spirit would just disappear already so he could forget already, but she continues to remain in this world. He wonders if this is punishment for his sins in the past, but before long, Touko notices Shiki's constant distraction and dismisses him from work for the day, stating that she would rather not have him do half-hearted work. As the two of them would then converse with each other about Yumizuka, the ghost herself cleaning in the corner, oblivious to the conversation in the meantime, Touko would speculate that a reason why Yumizuka continued to remain in this world was linked to the superstition that ghosts remained in the world because there was something they would have liked to do before they died, thus their restless continued state of existence. Though Shiki initially scoffs at the idea, his attention is caught when Touko continues by stating that it is he who must make the first move if he wants her to disappear, though emphasizes that if there is a reason that a person like Yumizuka must disappear, that Shiki should be doing it for the right reason. With that, Shiki is left to wonder to himself; will he realize what he has to do? Does he truly want her to disappear? And if he does is it for the right reason? Chapter 2 - "The Epiphany of Shiki Tohno" A few days after the first chapter, Shiki sits outside Touko's workshop, having once again been dismissed early from his work. He continues wondering what Yumizuka's wish was supposed to be, but before he can get very far in his thoughts, he is interrupted by Yumizuka herself, who accidentally drops a number of cardboard boxes on him. It is then that Shiki decides to use this as an opportunity to confront her, despite all the time he had been using to deliberately avoid her, and figure out what her wish is in order for her to move on. Asking her out on a nightly stroll through town, Yumizuka agrees to accompany Shiki. As they walk around the evening Misaki Town, Shiki recalls the events of Tsukihime, killing evil vampires and demons that had once terrorized the city. Before long, they would reach a nearby park, where the two of them would sit down and have a rest, before Shiki would finally decide to come clean and tell her what he intended to talk to her about. With that, he asks her what she wanted out of life when she was alive, though Yumizuka's answers prove to be somewhat unhelpful. However, when Yumizuka continues that all she ever wanted was to happily be with Shiki, he snaps, angrily remarking that if that were true, she would already be gone and have already left him alone, before then proceeding to express the true extent of how Yumizuka's death had deeply affected him. In response, Yumizuka simply smiles and asks Shiki if he had ever been happy once ever since the day she had died, remarking that if he really was so sad that he wanted to die like he said, then he indeed would be dead by now, which of course he was not. With the question, Shiki thinks back to his recent life, notably the beginning of the Murder Games and how his life had been up to that point, remembering how he had fallen in love with Mikasa, how he had decided to grow stronger and face his problems after her death (whilst hypocritically continuing to run away from Yumizuka's memory without even realizing it), and using that strength to defeat the Arch Demon and his minions in order to make sure Mikasa rested easy. With that, Shiki nodded, affirming that he had indeed been capable of being happy again all this time. once again disappears in Shiki's arms, mirroring the first time she had died as well.|266x266px]] With that, Yumizuka suddenly began to disappear, and it was only then that Shiki had realized that Yumizuka's wish was for Shiki to be happy again, rather than to see him suffer like he had forced himself to believe all this time. He desperately pleads her to stay, having changed his mind now that he knew her true intentions, but Yumizuka only tells him to keep moving forward no matter what, before completely disappearing for the second and last time, leaving Shiki all alone once again. Meanwhile, in the Tohno Residence, Shiki's adoptive sister, Akiha Tohno, is seen waiting for him to come back home, the girl having noted that Shiki had been coming home later than usual ever since getting involved with the Mage's Association again, a fib that Shiki had created while referring to his new work under Touko Aozaki. When Shiki eventually does return, Akiha approaches him cautiously, mentally noting to herself how bad he looked, before Shiki, tears running down his cheeks would give a smile, telling Akiha that he had finally found his hope again. Chapter 3 - "The Departure of Shiki Tohno" Several days after his emotional episode, Shiki is seen on a morning like any other sitting outside the Tohno Residence on a fountain, seemingly thinking about nothing, as he describes. Akiha appears before him and admonishes him on his careless thinking, encouraging him to settle back into his once normal life, but Shiki claims that he is unable to do so, citing that he has had other things on his mind. Akiha suddenly breaks down and yells at Shiki, believing his response to be another gesture of his mannerisms of being distant as she always believed he was and how, after many years of this behavior, she had finally become sick of it, running off as abruptly as she had appeared, leaving a bewildered Shiki behind. Later that night, Shiki is seen sitting inside the room, thinking over the events that had transpired with after-dinner tea, Akiha having refused to leave the room ever since the incident earlier that day. Kohaku then appears before Shiki, the maid briefly teasing him, before Shiki decides to confide in her, inquiring why Akiha acted the way she did earlier, before being asked in return "where he was" now and told how distant he never realized he always seemed to be. Perplexed, Shiki is left wondering what Kohaku means, and what he must do about it if he is to be able to remain as he is. A day later, Akiha has still refused to come out of her room, and Shiki, having taken the whole day to think over the problem that had been bothering him all throughout, made a decision: He was going to leave home to "find where he was," and once he did, wherever he'd be, he'd come home, emphasizing to himself that he was not running away from his problems, but rather, acknowledging that in order to face his problems, he must go to the heart of it. He must search for it and confront it head-on. That night, in an attempt to sneak out of the house without alerting the others, Shiki is halted by one final obstacle; his personal maid, Hisui, who manages to catch him just as he is about to leave through the front door. She attempts to persuade him to rethink his actions and stay, but Shiki refuses, passionately believing that if he goes, he'll be able to find whatever he's looking for, for everyone else's sakes. Brought to tears due to Shiki's conviction and the connection they share, Hisui finds that she has no choice but to let Shiki go, the young man wandering off into the night without any hesitation. Chapter 4 - "The Disappearance of Shiki Tohno" Some time later, no more than two days later, Akiha muses on Shiki's disappearance, having found out about it the day after, displaying regret at her sudden explosion. Unaware of his true intentions, Akiha wishes for Shiki to return home, having believed that her yelling drove him to run away in shame or cowardice. As it turned out, the Tohno Residence wasn't the only place affected by Shiki's departure, as Ciel infiltrates the temporary residence / apartment of Arcueid Brunestud, hoping to get answers pertaining to his whereabouts, only to find that the vampire has little idea either, though comments that his familiar, Len, may have an idea. A little later after that, back in the Tohno Residence, Shiki is seen attempting to buy snacks from a vending machine on the street, using a card that is registered to an account that Akiha has access to. From there, Akiha is able to deny access, hoping to inconvenience Shiki. Thinking that he is attempting to leave the country, she hopes that freezing his cards and other papers are enough to get him to come home. However, Shiki gets around this; by simply breaking the vending machine physically and stealing the snacks in there, musing that "it's only illegal if he gets caught," as his friend Arihiko would have said. Chapter 5 - "The Law of Shiki Tohno" Back in Misaki Town, Minato Arisato leaves school on an afternoon like any other, worried over the recent disappearance of Shiki Tohno, who had been absent for around three days now. He also takes note of the fact that his girlfriend Ciel had become somewhat distant lately, implied to be caused by her recent crusades to hunt a group of vampires called the "Sons of Roa," vampires that ran rampant in town in the wake of the fall of Roa, the antagonist of Tsukihime who has since been defeated for good, her distance only made more severe with Shiki's disappearance. Shortly after the two of them would begin to walk home together, only for Ciel to leave him halfway to run an errand, Minato is approached by and led into a nearby restaurant to talk by Arcueid Brunestud, who informs him of what she knows of the circumstances concerning Shiki's departure from town, and how she is able to pinpoint a rough estimate of his location thanks to the bond he shares with his familiar, Len, who is also present at the restaurant. However, she states that she is unable to personally go off and find Shiki herself with Len, as like Ciel, she is too focused on tracking down the Sons of Roa, so she suggests that Minato go find Shiki himself with the aid of Len. Reluctantly complying, taken aback by the so sudden suggestion and how his location seemed to be so easy to reach, Minato agrees and takes Len with home, initially going home to pack up a few things. With that, the two of them depart for Shiki's whereabouts, Len holding Minato by having him ride on her shoulders as she holds her up with her superhuman strength, and running out of town and towards Shiki's general location at transonic speeds in order to catch up, though she tires herself out rather quickly. Still, they manage to track Shiki down to a forest, where he greets them at his camp site, but also tells them why he cannot come back home immediately, expressing regret that he was unable to truly say goodbye, but maintaining that it was for the best, with Minato claiming to understand, the two of them exchanging their thoughts on what it means to live. After some more conversing, Shiki decides to let Minato and Len sleep over at the site with him, as it had since become dark. 's spirit disappears from the world, finding peace with itself.|280x280px]] The next day, Minato and Len would wake up to find that Shiki had gone, presumably to hunt for food, as his bags were still present. In Shiki's absence, the spirit of Kouma Kishima, whom Minato had encountered during the Fiamma Incident, would appear before them, talking of how things had changed, yet also remained the same, since the last time they had met, with Shiki eventually returning and displaying an openly hostile attitude towards the spirit. From there, the three of them discuss Shiki's past and circumstances, as well as the spirit's, who possesses the memory of the original "Kouma Kishima," desire to be able to move on from his past by reconciling with Shiki. With that, he abruptly leaves them, and later, Shiki decides that it is time for him to move again, Minato wishing him luck on his journey as Len accompanies Shiki from here on out. While Minato would leave the woods, meeting up with Ciel who had just finished dealing with an aforementioned Son of Roa who had been trying to escape Misaki Town, the two of them decide to have a nice dinner together when they'd return home, all the while "Kouma Kishima" begins to disappear, and Shiki continues his journey with Len accompanying him. Chapter 6 - "The Hunt for Shiki Tohno" Shiki has a flashback to when he was a child, being carried by his biological father, Kiri Nanaya. The exposition talks of Kiri's past and how he came to realize how to love with the birth of his son. Having lived a life where everything that happened in his life was decided for him, Kiri realized that the most important thing in life was the ability to choose one's own path in life with their own hand. In the present day, after managing to escape the woods, Shiki senses a sinister figure lurking from beyond the tall grass in the empty field in front of him. Beyond awaits a man claiming to be a part of the Umbrella Remnant known as VECTOR, who had worked alongside BERTHA, an enemy from The Ties That Bind that Shiki had been a part of, and under the late Albert Wesker. VECTOR cryptically talks of how Shiki, as a "Progenitor," is destined to die, and attempts to assassinate him on the spot. After commanding Len to stand down, stating that this is between the two of them as men, he and VECTOR engage in a heated battle with each other, VECTOR able to keep up due to having been injected with a weaker strain of the virus that granted Wesker his superhuman abilities. Eventually, VECTOR is able to gain the upper hand and restrains Shiki by stabbing his knife into the younger man's shoulder. It is then that Shiki's life begins to flash before his eyes as he loses the will to resist, and his vision goes black. When he opens his eyes again, he finds himself in a world of nothing but black, lying on the floor, unable to move, as his original personality that had lay dormant all this time, Shiki Nanaya, admonished him for his weak will. As Nanaya prepares to kill Tohno in order to finalize his death in the real world, asking him if it angers him that he'd go out this way, and asking if it bothered him that he was leaving behind so much, Shiki Tohno has an epiphany and gains the will to live at the last minute, having realized that he was scared to die, and remembering that his life has value because of what he has left behind, and what he must pick up again. With that, he is able to push off VECTOR and kill him, ending the fight between them. However, his injuries prove to be grievous, and as Len rushes over to check on him, Shiki remarks on how if VECTOR was not from this world, perhaps that meant that he had a device on him that was able to traverse through the multiverse. Chapter 7 - "The Ideal of Shiki Tohno" Shiki has a dream where he sees himself, eyes bandaged rather than bespectacled, standing atop a hill. Behind him is what he has left behind, such as Mikasa, among other things, and in front of him is what he had been looking so hard for all this time; the will to live and the desire to live, things which had been lost on Shiki due to him always being too busy spending time in life-threatening situations where his life could have been extinguished in any given moment. But now, with most of his fights behind him, there was nothing for him, as he had never known peace, but now he had managed to find it, though before he could return home, he could sense that there was one more fight that he would have to fight before he would be able to come back home. Shiki eventually wakes up in the Coalition Med-Bay, his wounds miraculously healed as he is greeted by the nurse, Akiko Yosano, with whom he converses with considering what he had been looking for, and what he had found. After a while, he is taken away by another member of the Coalition named Doppo Kunikida, who decides to give the younger man a tour of the base. Stopping at the Research Room, Doppo states that Shiki's presence in the base is a liability, deciding to break the ice, taking note of how strange it is that an Umbrella Operative would have a multiversal traveling device with the ability to easily transport oneself into HQ, the older man stating his worries that this potentially means there is a mole within the Coalition, prompting Shiki stay put in the base until this all settles. Deciding to pass the time, Shiki reads up on the incident reports, the name "Ilona" catches his attention, as it is stated that her home is the land of Arendelle, which he recognizes as the home of Queen Elsa, whom he had vaguely known from past incidents. It is here that he realizes that she had passed away, and he displays worry over the fact that Ilona is considered to be a subject to be put under close surveillance for whatever reason. In the end, some time after finishing his reading session, Shiki reaches out to the window in the Observatory, thinking of back home, and how he had one more last thing to do before he'd be able to go home. Likewise, back home, Akiha is seen reaching out at the window of her bedroom, wishing for Shiki to come back. Trivia * On top of characters native to Type-Moon, such as Michael Roa Valdamjong and Shiki's friend Arihiko Inui, who never makes a physical appearance within the story, Claire Redfield, Albert Wesker, Mikasa Ackerman, and the Arch Demon, among others, are also mentioned in passing. Kiri Nanaya, Shiki's biological father, also makes a brief speaking appearance within a flashback. * The Ghirahim Incident and The Fall of Elliot are mentioned in passing in the last chapter. Category:Side Stories Category:The Life of Shiki Tohno